


peace looks good on you

by uponmountains



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Protective Nicky, the first half is violent but the second is so soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uponmountains/pseuds/uponmountains
Summary: After they manage to escape the lab, there is a shift back from violence to peace, and the most important thing becomes reaffirming one another’s presence, with a fair bit of flirting to top it all off.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 45
Kudos: 600





	peace looks good on you

**Author's Note:**

> I changed the lab situation a tiny bit, but assume that everything else within the movie is the same.
> 
> I only know English and French, but the scattered phrases of other languages that I’m familiar with fortunately often include terms of endearment, so I hope I haven’t botched them too badly by using a couple here. Feel free to let me know if I have, though!

Nicky’s eyes shot up as the lab doors crashed open and Andy and Booker were herded inside none too gently. They were thrown down and then strapped to the cots on his right.

“Andy?” Nicky strained against his restraints, trying to see past the guards as they secured the others. He vaguely registered Booker’s claim to have killed Andy, but he was more fixated on the way that the blood just kept oozing from her wound without pause, Merrick and Kozak’s voices blending into the background as they discussed what to do. Merrick ordered that Andy be kept alive at all costs, and, driven as much by the need to spite Merrick as he was to reassure Andy, Nicky spoke. “All things die.” The man looked bewildered that Nicky had even dared to address him. “Everything has to die, Mr. Merrick.” This would be so much easier if Joe were beside him, but he was off somewhere else, likely with a bullet between his eyes, whether currently alive or not, he had no idea. “The only reason that we haven’t is that it’s not our time yet.” He averted his gaze from the man. “If it’s now Andromache’s, nothing you can do will stop it.”

Merrick stalked closer, emboldened by their restraints. “I will carve slices off of you for years to get what I want,” he said, his selfish greed turning his words into something closer to a hiss. “Your time is coming.”

“As is yours," Nicky said evenly, leveling Merrick with a piercing stare and the promise of his impending death.

Merrick’s face twitched, his anger apparent, and he stormed from the room, demanding results from Kozak, who set to work on Andy.

Some time later, they were left alone, and, knowing that they were still under surveillance by a multitude of cameras, silence persisted until Andy spoke.

“Where’s Joe?” she asked quietly, groaning as she shifted.

Nicky shook his head. “They shot me. He was gone when I woke up.” He worried at his lip, digging his teeth in enough to feel a sharp prick of pain. “Kozak wants to know how to kill us.” Booker made a quiet, distressed noise. It seemed that somehow, he had expected to bear the brunt of the experimentation himself, given that he was the one who wanted to die. If they succeeded with Joe instead, he wouldn’t forgive himself.

Andy’s eyes flashed with understanding. “And Joe kicked up a fuss so that she’d choose him to experiment on instead of you.”

Nicky shook his head. “Didn’t need to. I think it was over when he headbutted Merrick when they brought us in.” He went quiet, watching the doors and willing them to open to reveal Joe’s smiling face. Hell, he’d be satisfied with his unconscious body right now. Anything was better than this perpetual absence, this unbearable weight of uncertainty. “What if they figured it out?”

“In one day? After we’ve been dying for millennia?” Nicky could hear the extra incredulity that Andy forced into her tone, trying to sound even more certain than she felt for his benefit. Sure, it was highly unlikely, but there was always that tiny chance that this time was it. For Andy, it would be. Who was to say that it wasn’t the same for Joe?

Nicky looked up at the ceiling and furiously hoped for a miracle.

Not much time later, their miracle arrived in the form of Nile bursting through the doors and knocking out Kozak, then freeing Andy while giving her a pep talk that ended with bullets in a group of guards.

“Did you see Joe?” Nicky asked Nile as Andy freed his right hand, leaving him to remove the rest of the restraints.

Nile shook her head. “No. Why’s he not with you guys?”

Nicky shook his head and got to his feet. “The doctor decided she didn’t like him.” He crossed over to where she was still crumpled on the floor, pulling his shirt on as he went and grabbing Joe’s from beside it. “Hey.” He grabbed Kozak’s arm, and she blearily came to. “Where’s Joe? What did you do with him?” he demanded, speaking over her when she tried to break free of his grasp. “Tell us where you took him!”

“He’s just down the hall!” she answered, cowering away when she saw that the guards who had been assigned under her were all dead. “Four doors down on the right. Oh God.”

“What did you do to him?”

“I just—Please, my father needs a liver transplant, and he’s a close enough match to save him for a while. He was just healing too quickly for me to get the organ out, so he—he had to stay dead for the operation.”

Nicky saw red, and he dropped her arm, letting her fall back to the floor. She stared up at them all in fear. “I hope you feel it was worth it,” he said flatly, taking one of the guard’s guns and shooting her as he went to the door. She was dead before they made it out of the room.

Several doors later, they burst into another wing of the lab. They disregarded the scattered bloody implements and focused on the figure in the center.

“Joe,” Nicky breathed, blindly handing his gun off to Nile and running to the operating table where Joe was strapped down, his torso cut open into a gaping wound. Nicky freed him quickly, then took his face in his hands, his skin bruised and flecked with blood. “Joe, wake up.” He quickly calculated how long Kozak had been in the room with them. It was close to an hour since she had last returned. Had she ordered someone else to stay here and just keep killing Joe over and over? They must have only just left if he was still out like this. “Yusuf, amore mio, svegliati,” he murmured, but still his eyes did not open. Nicky dropped his forehead against Joe’s and took a shaky breath. It couldn’t possibly be that he had been dead all of this time, right? There was no way that his and Andy’s time had run out together. She had millennia on them. It made no sense. “Yusuf, destati,” he begged, echoing his beloved’s pleas from the back of that armored van.

“What’s happening?” Nile asked behind him, her gaze darting back and forth between the door and the table.

Booker was shaking his head, his eyes shining and wet. “Not both of you,” he breathed, and Andy turned to him, a hand pressed over her wound, to see the devastation plain in his eyes. No matter what he’d wanted, this might be all that his betrayal had wrought. He just wanted to be able to die, but instead, he might continue to live with even fewer companions. If they made it out, after Andy too was gone, the best he could hope for was Nile’s company, because despite how forgiving Nicky usually was, Joe’s death was something that he would not recover from, and Booker would not even be able to bring himself to ask for the forgiveness that he knew he would not deserve if Joe stayed dead.

“We go together, my beloved. You know this. Wake _up_.”

The stomping footsteps of the gunmen running in formation were growing closer, and Andy raised her gun at the door before looking sharply behind her. “Nicky, we’re out of time.”

Booker ran to his side. “Come on. We’ll carry him out.”

Nicky shook his head and cupped Joe’s neck in both hands. “Ya hayati,” he breathed, horror settling in as more time passed and there was no change. This had never happened before.

“Nicky,” Booker said softly, but Nicky shrugged him off. 

His fingers slid up into Joe’s hair, and he felt them get wet with blood as they brushed up against something metal. He froze, then moved Joe’s head to the side so he could look at the back. There, plunged into Joe’s skull, was what looked like an irregularly shaped pike, barely half an inch of it protruding from his head, the metal entirely hidden among his curls. A tentative relief rushed through him, and he grabbed onto the bit of metal that he could get to and pulled. He used all of his strength, but it was lodged inside. “It’s stuck,” he called over his shoulder after a few more seconds of trying. He barely noticed as his own fingertips bled from the sharp edges as he struggled.

Andy paced over to them then, shoving her gun into Nicky’s hands and pointing to the door before testing her strength against the blade. With a horrific squelching sound, it came out about an inch, and Andy’s eyes narrowed. “It looks barbed,” she said before putting her foot on the table for leverage and trying again, Booker pulling Joe in the opposite direction.

“They’re here!” Nile yelled in warning before a volley of bullets came through the door. Nicky remembered Andy’s situation just in time and threw himself in the way of a bullet that was heading for her before shooting back and felling at least a few of their enemies as that awful sound came from behind him again. It then repeated before it was drowned out by the din, and then the gunmen were breaching the door, and it was a real fight.

Joe was put on the ground behind cover while the rest returned fire, moving smoothly around each other to take out the threats. Eventually, they cleared the room, and Nicky and Booker rushed back to Joe’s side as Andy and Nile reloaded.

"We have to keep moving. We can’t be trapped in here with only one exit. Nicky, just bring him. We’ll fix it when we can,” Andy said, checking the chamber of another gun that she picked up.

Nicky had been maneuvering Joe’s arms into his shirt, and he pulled it on him and then wrapped his arm around his shoulders, waving off Booker when he tried to help. “I have him. You’re more useful defending Andy. Go.” He trailed the group, failing to do much more than catch the bullets that would otherwise have hit Joe or Andy. He swore when two shots tore through his shoulder and Joe slid from his grasp.

“Nicky!” Nile called back to him over the gunfire.

He waved her off. “Go on. We’ll catch up!” He shot two more of the men and then dragged Joe aside into an open supply room when they had a moment out of anyone’s line of sight. He closed the door behind them and immediately went to Joe again, grabbing the metal that Andy had managed to pull over halfway out and giving it a forceful yank, whispering apologies when something inside sounded like it was ripping. He gathered his strength, bracing one hand on Joe’s shoulder and heaving with the other, finally pulling the wretched object free.

To Nicky’s overwhelming relief, after the weapon had been removed, the wound slowly began to knit itself together as it should. He raised wet eyes above him and breathed quiet thanks to God, to the universe, to Andy, to Joe—to who or whatever had decided that it was not yet his beloved’s time to leave him. 

There were small plinks and clattering noises as bits of metal that had been ripped from the pike and left embedded in Joe’s brain were forced out onto the floor, and then finally, the wound was healed. When Nicky lifted Joe’s shirt, he saw his torso smoothing over until it was unmarked beneath the covering of blood. Seconds later, Joe’s eyes scrunched up in discomfort and a pained groan escaped his lips, and Nicky might have sobbed in relief.

“Yusuf,” he murmured, putting a hand on his neck and guiding his head so that when his eyes opened, their gazes would meet.

Joe’s fingers wrapped tight around his wrist a moment before he opened his eyes. “Nicky,” he choked out, shifting uncomfortably and then spitting a piece of metal to the side. He looked around the room. “I assume the cavalry arrived? Or did you just miss me?” He smiled cheekily, and Nicky pressed their foreheads together, allowing himself this moment before they would have to go back to fighting and dying.

“You wouldn’t heal,” Nicky mumbled, his fingers going into Joe’s hair to smooth over the wound that was no longer there.

Joe saw the turmoil in Nicky’s eyes and pressed forward, his lips just brushing the corner of Nicky’s. “We go together, my love,” he said, repeating a vow that had been uttered a thousand times before.

“Yes,” Nicky agreed. “But they put something in your head, and you wouldn’t heal.”

“Right.” Joe’s fingertips bumped into Nicky’s when he felt for the missing injury. “I do recall the unpleasant hammering.”

Nicky swallowed, pushing down his hatred for those who had done this. They were already dead, but perhaps he had been too merciful in his haste. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and pulled back a few inches. “We need to go help.”

Joe nodded, and they got to their feet. Nicky passed his gun to Joe, recalling the placement of a body near the door where he could grab another.

“Wait.” Nicky grabbed Joe’s arm as he moved to the door. “Andy’s mortal.”

Joe froze, his gaze boring into Nicky’s. “Why now?” he breathed, not really asking Nicky.

Nicky shrugged, then steeled himself for the next part. Joe wasn’t going to be inclined to offer forgiveness, but it would come more easily than if it had been Nicky on the operating table. As it was, despite Booker being family, Nicky felt an uncomfortable and unfamiliar anger boiling inside of him for what he had done. If Joe hadn’t come back, he truly didn’t know how he would have responded, but mere banishment might have felt like a kinder fate than he deserved. “Booker shot her.”

A flurry of emotions crossed Joe’s face, and Nicky was tempted to kiss them away, to soothe him back into focus, into the blissful ignorance of believing that no one among their family would ever betray each other. “That _fucker_ —”

“Leave it for now, Joe, please,” Nicky said quickly. “He’s still fighting with us to get everyone out.”

Joe shook his head. “But why would he hurt her?”

Nicky’s reply was quiet. “Because he wants to die.”

Joe was quick to connect the dots. “He sold us out. He’s the reason for all of this.”

Nicky nodded, a sharp, pained movement, before he let his fingers slide down Joe’s arm and fall back to his side. “We’ll handle it later. We have to deal with Merrick now.”

“Fine,” Joe agreed unhappily, adjusting his hold on the gun. He scanned Nicky, his eyes darting all over him and making sure that the blood wasn’t hiding any lingering injuries. “You’re good, right?”

“I am as you are,” Nicky replied, and then they left the room as one, chasing down their team and killing any who came between them. They finally made it to the same room as the others, Booker quickly bringing a hand up to stop Nile from shooting when he saw who had entered.

"Joe,” Andy said with a sigh of relief, a smile coming to her lips even as she breathed hard in her crouch against a wall. Joe’s eyes went to her gunshot wound, and she shrugged helplessly when their gazes met again.

Booker let his head fall back against a wall and whispered his thanks before he caught Nicky’s eyes.

“You are very fortunate,” Nicky said, his tone steady and dangerous. Booker nodded his understanding at the confirmation of what he had already known: the end of one would bring the wrath of the other.

They all quickly lined up along the wall that separated them from Merrick’s men, waiting positioned at both doors, but their preparation meant nothing when the wall was blown apart from the other side, sending Andy, Joe, and Nicky flying across the room while the others struggled to gather their bearings and breathe with the air filled with gas. They coughed and gasped as their bodies tried desperately to heal against the constant damage to their lungs.

Booker called for Andy, managing to grab her and shield her from the bullets that flew through the smoke. “Joe, Nicky, we’re moving out!” he called over his shoulder as he and Nile went with Andy, unaware that neither of them could hear anything at the moment.

Nicky came to first, waking from death to the thick, acrid smoke filling his lungs. His eyes flew to Joe immediately, dead again a few feet away, and then a boot was coming for his face too quickly for him to react, and he was thrown onto his back. He groaned and turned over, managing to almost get up on all fours before he was kicked in the stomach and knocked back down, but the pain dulled under the realization that Joe was shifting and waking up. He managed to evade the next attack and take the man down onto his back, landing a single blow to his face before he was sent crashing into a cart, feeling something snap in the process. 

Joe thankfully picked up the fight where he left it, putting himself between them and giving Nicky just a moment to catch his breath and heal. The guard’s head was slammed into the ground, but it was not enough to keep him down. Joe ripped off his gas mask, so he would at least be forced to clear out of the room soon, but Joe was still unsteady from just waking up, and the man got in a solid hit, crushing his trachea and fracturing his larynx, leaving him gasping helplessly on his knees and vulnerable to attack. 

Nicky forced himself to ignore the pain and threw himself forward, dragging the man away from Joe. A knee drove into a still healing rib, though, and when his lips parted in a cry of pain, a gun was shoved between them, and a deafening bang ushered in darkness.

He opened his eyes to the underside of Joe’s chin as he hovered over him and looked away in his relief before turning back and putting gentle hands on Nicky’s arms, Nicky’s hands flying up to touch him too, to reassure himself that they were both still alive, before awareness of their situation came back to him.

“Let’s go. Andy.” 

They grabbed for nearby guns and stumbled to the door, Nicky still breathing harshly through the ringing headache left behind by the bullet. He could feel the hot wetness of blood drenching the back of his head as they ran, finding Andy standing over a downed guard with the others running to join her from the other side of the bridge.

“Penthouse,” the man on the ground choked out in response to Andy, and as one, they looked up to find their quarry.

* * *

“So where do we go now?” Nile asked from the passenger seat, looking to Andy as she drove.

Andy shrugged, glancing into the rear view mirror to meet Nicky and then Joe’s eyes for a moment. “What do you think?” she asked them.

“We have to keep moving, right? Is there another safe house?” Nile pressed, turning in her seat to look between them expectantly. 

“You came into this to see the worst of it, Nile,” Nicky said, understanding her underlying paranoia as her eyes kept darting to the skies and nearby roads, as if she was expecting another strike team to appear out of nowhere and reclaim them all. “Most of the time, as long as we’re careful, people aren’t trying to kill us. With Merrick gone... “ He shrugged.

“That threat’s gone,” Joe finished. “And if Copley keeps his word, then we could even be better off than we were before we met him, except—” he cut himself off and turned his gaze out the window until Nicky’s fingers caught his wrist, hearing the unspoken admission that he already missed Booker, despite his anger toward him. 

“Where do you want to go, Andy?” Nicky asked instead of pushing the issue. 

She shook her head. “You’re not all going to start catering to me just because of this. Nothing’s changed, okay?”

“Just asking for a suggestion.” Nicky raised his free hand in playful surrender, drawing a smile and head shake from her. “If it’s all the same to everyone else, I’d say we deserve some time off. A few weeks, at least, before we check in to see whatever Copley has found for us.” Joe’s fingers trailed over the back of his hand, tracing over his knuckles and down his veins before intertwining their fingers.

“You slacking, Nicky?” Andy raised her eyebrows. “Because I’m pretty sure we just got back from a year off about a week ago.”

Joe and Nicky exchanged a solemn look. They were fairly certain that Andy’s ‘year off’ ended up being just as busy as theirs, and likely occupied with the same primary task: searching for Quynh.

When neither answered, Andy glanced into the mirror again, seemed to realize what they were thinking, then looked to Nile. Seeing something in her face, she sighed, then took the next turn and started driving as though she had a destination. “I need a drink,” she announced, tilting her head to crack her neck.

“We just left a bar,” Nile pointed out, an eyebrow raised just slightly.

“Mhm,” Andy hummed, keeping her gaze on the road. Nile looked at Joe, who shrugged back at her. Nile was intuitive. She would understand what plagued Andy soon enough.

They pulled up in front of another pub, this one more modern, and Joe offered to park the car so they didn’t all have to walk. The three of them went inside, claiming a table with a good vantage point of the main room and the exits.

“What do you normally do during your time off, then? Is it just this?” Nile asked, an understandably somewhat judging eyebrow still lifted a bit higher than the other.

“Everyone mourns from time to time, Nile,” Andy replied. She picked up the drink that was set in front of her and brought it to her lips. “It lets you be more productive afterward.” She turned to look out of the window, watching the grey skies slowly start to release a drizzle of rain that trailed down the panes. Now mortal, after thousands of years, she had a time limit for everything, and the chances of her ever seeing Quynh again had just fallen exponentially. She deserved a few minutes to sort through everything, 

Nile turned concerned eyes on Nicky, who shook his head slightly and nodded toward her glass. It would likely hit her soon enough too—the realization of all of the lives that she’d had to take, the understanding that her time with her family was truly over. There was plenty for her to mourn and come to terms with. The moments of quiet here might do her some good, might stem the inevitable tide of grief.

A few moments later, another glass was set in front of Nicky, and he looked up at the bartender.

“From the guy at the bar,” she said, nodding across the room before returning.

Nicky was already smiling before he met Joe’s eyes. “Excuse me, Nile,” he said, picking up both drinks and crossing over to Joe. “Is this seat taken?”

Joe pulled the stool out with his foot, gesturing openly. “Please.”

Nicky shook his head with a smile, dropping into the seat and setting the drinks on the bar, sliding the one he’d ordered for Joe in front of him. “Join me, will you?”

“Who could refuse a request from an angel?” Joe said with an easy grin, leaning back and picking up the proffered glass to take a sip.

“Ah, you’re a smooth talker.” 

“Now, I’ve never been accused of such a thing before.”

“Surely you must’ve,” Nicky said, helpless to stop the smile that was curving his lips. “I’d wager that you have such lines ready for anyone who catches your eye.”

Joe brought a hand to his chest. “Sir, I will have you know that once I find my beloved, nothing and no one could possibly tear my gaze away.”

“So you are here looking for love, then,” Nicky continued their game, propping his chin on his hand as he slouched a bit against the bar.

“Oh, but who could be looking for love when it is everywhere around us? The wind carries it through the trees. The rain brings it down from the sky. If a drop was so lucky as to fall onto your cheek, it would rejoice in having found an end infinitely more precious than it could hope for on this earth.” He blinked slowly, pretending to be unaware of how his words affected Nicky. “If I were looking for love, though, I don’t think that I’d have to go searching very far.”

Nicky swallowed, his heart alight even after the violence and loss of their earlier hours. “Is that so?”

“Mm.” Joe brought the glass back to his lips, his eyes twinkling. He then set it back on the bar. “So, what brings Adonis made incarnate to this little pub?”

“Nothing more than the hope of seeing my other half,” Nicky replied, his fingers itching to take Joe’s face into his hands.

Joe let out a laugh. “And you’re calling me the smooth talker.”

“Well, who was it that was waxing poetic about the rain?” Nicky countered.

Joe shook his head. “Such a beautiful man with such a light humor. I must know your name, or I fear I might die of longing.”

Nicky rolled his eyes fondly at his antics. “Nicky, these days, but you may call me Nicolò. Always.”

“Nicolò,” Joe said slowly, like he was testing the name, as though his tongue hadn’t curled around it countless times in the past, making Nicky weak every time. “Nicolò, Nicolò. It suits you.”

For some reason, just hearing his name coming from Joe’s lips after the last few days that they’d had made Nicky long for comfort. They didn’t need to touch or even speak to affirm their love for one another, encompassing and apparent as it had been for centuries, but comfort sometimes became necessary, and after losing Booker, learning that their time with Andy was coming to an end, and believing for those anguishing minutes that Joe wasn’t going to come back, this was definitely one of those times. Lamenting that he couldn’t just brush off his worries and enjoy the light atmosphere that Joe was clearly determined to offer him, Nicky bit his lip, then put his hand on Joe’s knee and shifted his seat closer so their sides were pressed together. He dropped his head onto Joe’s shoulder, closing his eyes and just breathing in his scent and reveling in his presence. He felt Joe’s hands settle quickly around him in a warm embrace.

“Nicky?” The voice that was more familiar to him than his own murmured above him, and Nicky shook his head against Joe’s shoulder, then pushed forward more so his forehead brushed Joe’s neck. One of Joe’s hands moved to cup Nicky’s neck, holding him close and brushing soothing fingers through his short hair. “Nicolò, il mio cuore,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into his hair. “It’s alright. We’re all alright.” He said nothing else when Nicky failed to respond, just held him quietly for the next few minutes until the sound of Andy clearing her throat came from beside them, and they looked up.

“Is it time to head out?” she asked, Nile coming up behind her.

Nicky shook his head. “Stay as long as you like, boss. We’re fine.”

“And we can eat and drink anywhere,” she replied, jerking her head toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

Gratefully, Nicky stood, and they filed out behind the women into the rain, walking down the block to where Joe had parked.

Nile drove, insisting on it as she was the only one who hadn’t touched her drink, even though none of them were anywhere near impaired. It would take a good few bottles to get any of them to that point.

It took some time, with Andy giving directions in between changing the radio station and Joe carefully watching Nicky in the back. They eventually arrived at a cottage that none of them had seen in decades since Nicky had worked to make a home of it for the few short months that they were there. Distracted as he was, he hadn’t even fully realized that this was where they were driving to, though the familiar landscape should have tipped him off. 

“Are we planning to stay here?” Joe asked as they cased their surroundings, making sure it was as abandoned as it seemed.

Andy shrugged. “For tonight, at least. It’s the closest place that we have.”

Nile looked at it skeptically. “Does this place even have running water?” she asked, thinking of her dwindling supply of bloody, bullet riddled clothes that were probably best suited to a fire, at this point.

“One way to find out,” Joe said. 

“Hey, you two,” Andy called before they could get more than a foot away. “Don’t forget that the walls here are like cardboard and little ears will be nearby.”

Joe laughed at Nile’s incredulous expression. “Little ears? You realize I’m not actually a baby, right?”

“We will be very quiet and respectful,” Joe said, laughter still in his tone as he winked at Nile. “We’ll make dinner in a while. Do you need us before then?”

Andy shook her head. “I’m good. I’ll heal without your mothering, you know.” Joe and Nicky both smiled at that, and then leaned in on either side of Andy, Joe’s lips landing on her temple while Nicky kissed her cheek.

“See you in a bit, boss,” Nicky said.

“Yeah, just give a shout if you need anything. These walls are like cardboard, you know,” Joe said, and Andy rolled her eyes with a huff of laughter and waved them off, pulling Nile around the back of the house to show her its best view.

Joe took Nicky’s hand and tugged him toward the door, then pulled him into the room that had once been their bedroom. He took the sheets off of all of the furniture, bundling the dust covered fabric into a ball by the door and then throwing the windows open, catching a glimpse of the fiery sunset. They had had time to prepare this house for their absence before leaving, so even with the lack of care, it would be far from the worst place they had slept.

Nicky grabbed a mostly clean sheet and blanket from their dresser and put them on the bed before kicking off his shoes and dropping down onto it. He held a hand up to Joe, who immediately fell beside him and took his hand, pressing it to his lips.

“Long day, my beloved?” Joe murmured, bringing his lips to Nicky’s wrist, then intertwining their fingers and moving up to kiss his shoulder.

“I love you,” Nicky said instead of answering, his eyes so full of longing and love that Joe could have burst under their weight.

“I love you,” Joe echoed, smiling softly into the kiss that was pressed to his lips before Nicky pulled off of him and sat up, retrieving his sketchbook from his bag and tossing it to him.

“How many times was it for you, after we met Merrick?” Nicky asked, digging out a pencil and settling back in next to Joe, handing him the pencil. “It was five for me, between the lab and then escaping.”

Joe looked distressed at that, but he stayed quiet. He opened up the sketchbook, flipping to the page that had a small N and J in the top corner above a sketch of Andy and Booker smiling together on a couch with a bottle of wine between them, a scrawled number two written beside the N. Joe’s jaw tensed upon seeing the picture, but he didn’t get rid of their tally and move it to a different page, so Nicky didn’t mention it. “So you’re up to seven, but minus mine…” Joe erased the number, leaving the space next to the N blank and scribbling an eight beside the J.

Nicky’s eyebrows drew together. “You died fifteen times in just those hours?”

Joe shrugged. “That doctor wasn’t messing around. She was all, ‘It could take years to see the results of our experiments. This is something that we can do to bring real change right now. You should be pleased,’ while she’s repeatedly failing to steal my liver. She thought we could be an infinite source of organ transplants if the immortality thing didn’t pan out.” He scoffed at the memory, then took hold of Nicky’s hand again when he saw the pain in his face, brushing his thumb gently over his beloved’s skin. “I’m alright, my love, as are you.”

“It’s the farthest ahead that you’ve been in a very long time,” Nicky said quietly, bringing their hands together to press Joe’s against his chest.

“Well, it’s like you said to Nile; it’s not always like this. Maybe we’ll get to have some peace for a while. After all, you sat two ahead of me for, what, almost three years?”

Nicky closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, Joe was apparently ready to offer more reassurance.

“You know that I don’t think keeping track matters much, anyway.”

“You were the one who wanted to start keeping a tally in the first place to know when we’re even,” Nicky said, lifting Joe’s hand to his lips and kissing the fingertips that were somehow already smudged with graphite from his brief use of the pencil.

“With all your talk of destiny, perhaps you’ve pulled me over to your way of thinking.” Joe poked Nicky’s chin, earning a small smile. “Even if I’ve died eight more times than you or you a hundred times more than me, if it turns out that tomorrow is your time, then it will be mine, too. Nothing in this or any world could separate my soul from yours, my Nicolò.”

“Joe,” Nicky breathed, his eyes looking suspiciously wet. He shook his head, words failing him, and drew Joe closer, vaguely registering the sound of the sketchbook falling and the pencil clattering after it as he met him in the middle for a searing kiss. His hands went to Joe’s hair, tightening and then shifting lower to hold his waist before lifting the bottom of his shirt to ask permission, which Joe gladly gave, lifting his arms and allowing Nicky to pull the shirt off and toss it aside. He guided Joe down onto the bed, running a hand down his chest and then bringing it back up to cup his jaw as he settled across Joe’s legs and brought his lips to his neck.

“I hope there really is running water here still, because we should definitely be doing this in the shower. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got blood hidden on me,” Joe said before his breath stuttered when Nicky’s teeth scraped his skin.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Nicky said, sitting back onto Joe so that he could see his face. His eyes were unbearably gentle as they looked down on him. “You are still the most perfectly breathtaking thing that has or will ever walk this earth.”

Joe chuckled and pushed himself up to capture Nicky’s lips again, tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth before letting up and reveling at the sight of Nicky's kiss-reddened lips. “Surely you must be speaking to a mirror, because I know that when even the most beautiful angels are in need of a muse, they seek out your face.”

“I will happily be your muse, then, for you are certainly heaven’s most beautiful angel,” Nicky said with a soft smile, enjoying the opportunity to turn Joe’s words back on him. They earned him a hearty laugh, and then they were pressed along each other once again, the need to reassure and settle each other shifting into an eagerness for closeness that they achieved over the next minutes or hours; they didn’t keep track, and time meant so little to them anymore regardless.

When they finally emerged from their room, Andy and Nile were sitting close together on the small couch, positioned in a way that too closely resembled the sketch of Andy and Booker.

Nile glanced up first, giving them a slightly embarrassed wave with her greeting. “We got some food. You know that the closest store is like almost an hour away?” 

Which meant that they had disappeared for at least two hours, and when Nicky met Andy’s gaze, her raised eyebrow said as much. He shrugged unapologetically. “You do the shopping, we do the cooking,” he said, nodding to Nile. “Thanks, Nile. Is there anything you want in particular?” 

She shook her head and shrugged. “Surprise me?”

“We’ll do our best,” Joe said with a smile, nudging Nicky with his foot. They went to the little kitchen, leaving Nile and Andy to their quiet conversation. 

“She looks like she’s doing alright,” Nicky said softly, glancing back at them through the doorway. He ran his fingers down Joe’s back as he passed him. 

“Nile? Or Andy?”

“Both, I suppose. There’s a lot for both of them to adjust to.” Nicky bent down to a cupboard where he vaguely remembered leaving an old radio, bringing it out and dusting it off. He fiddled with it for a few minutes to the steady sounds of Joe chopping something behind him, eventually managing to turn it on and find a station that came through clear enough before returning to Joe’s side to help, sharing a smile with him when he looked up. Unable and seeing no reason to resist the urge, he leaned in, stealing a kiss before nonchalantly sliding into place beside Joe. The crooning music from the radio and indistinct murmurs of Nile and Andy in the next room set a calming scene as they worked, and as the moon began to rise and illuminate their lush, green surroundings, they called the women in to eat.

Nicky grabbed five plates automatically, then paused as he met Joe’s eyes and shook his head, putting one back. Understanding as he always did, Joe squeezed Nicky’s shoulder when he went past. They were overflowing with anger and pain over what Booker had done, but the added grief of missing him was already present, like their collective body was missing a limb and they had yet to learn how to live with the loss.

Nicky served them all and then sat opposite Joe, listening interestedly to Nile’s story about her brother after something reminded her of him while they all began to eat. It was different without Booker. Nile couldn’t replace him, to say that she could would be a disservice to her, so while they had been used to having four for so long, this four was different. Nile was strong and clever and undeniably lovable, and she fit so well into their dynamic, but like with everything else lately, there would be an adjustment period before they stopped looking only to find that Booker wasn’t there.

Nicky had easily accepted the decision of one hundred years of exile for Booker. For what he’d had to witness, for the crushing thought that Joe wouldn’t come back and it was partly Booker’s fault, he would have been willing to double the sentence. But now, their family was both bigger and smaller, and they were so used to change, but when it came to their small group, they were largely unaccustomed to loss. Time meant little, but he gave them maybe ten years before they caved and sought him out in France. Hopefully, by then Quynh would be with them to retrieve him.

A foot bumping into his ankle drew Nicky from his thoughts, and he looked to Joe but found that it was Nile who had gotten his attention under the table. “Are you okay?” she asked, looking concerned. He must have been frozen in thought for longer than it had seemed.

He nodded, offering her a smile before returning to the meal, happily listening to Joe and Andy resuming a decades old argument about technology until Nile drew his attention again.

“So, tomorrow,” she said, tapping her finger against her fork. “Where do we go then? What do we do?”

Andy broke off from Joe and leaned forward, dropping her elbow onto the old table. “What do _you_ want to do, Nile?”

“What, me?”

Joe shrugged. “We can split up or stick together. We can stay here or travel, do jobs or not.”

“The world is open to you, Nile,” Nicky agreed.

Andy raised an eyebrow, letting a smile curl her lips. “So, Nile,” she said, settling back into her seat. “What do you want?”

It wouldn’t be the same without Booker, but it wouldn’t have to be a bad thing. For now, they all still had each other, and someday, he would be one of them again. 

Joe and Nicky’s eyes met over their meal, and they shared a soft smile, Joe’s wink adding a cheeky edge to his loving expression. Nicky shook his head fondly and looked to Nile, waiting to hear what they would do next.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it 💕
> 
> In case you need it:  
> •amore mio: my love  
> •svegliati, destati: wake up (modern, old)  
> •ya hayati: my life  
> •il mio cuore: my heart
> 
> Thank you to Castalie for your help ❤


End file.
